


Changing Shapes

by WhosInTheAttic



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Reunions, Romance, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2012-11-15
Packaged: 2017-11-22 21:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhosInTheAttic/pseuds/WhosInTheAttic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I was listening to Miike Snow's "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ok0glLJsr4">Animal</a>" on the bus home, and this struck me.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Changing Shapes

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to Miike Snow's "[Animal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ok0glLJsr4)" on the bus home, and this struck me.

Nineteen years of nothing; waking up, going to work, eating chips, watching telly, and going to sleep to do it all again the next day. Rose Tyler didn’t start dreaming until she met the Doctor, and after Canary Wharf, she stopped. She’d fallen in love with a man from the stars, and lost him behind an invisible, impenetrable wall.

When she began working for Pete’s Torchwood, she would often go to that blank, white wall that she’d wept against; she knew the exact place where she’d felt the last traces of her Doctor fade away. It still made her ache, even as the years passed, but she filled her days with work on the dimension cannon, fighting her way back to him with every textbook read, every failed cannon prototype, every sullen look from her family and co-workers; Rose Tyler could not bring herself to give up.

When she was finally reunited with the Doctor, it wasn’t as easy as a hug and a welcome back; the years had changed her, made her harder and maybe a bit cynical. He became two men. Standing on a cold beach in Norway, Rose looked into the eyes of this new, new, _new_ man and she saw her Doctor. He loved her. He was going to stay, but he was also leaving. Things had never been simple and direct with him. Was it a betrayal of one to love the other? She loved both, but had to choose.

It was complicated and heartbreaking; for the second time her emotions had to pour like water into his new form, and for the third time she felt herself falling in love with the same man. Each time, it felt like those moments when she’d been climbing a flight of stairs and, not minding her step, thought there was one more, and for a terrifying instant thought she was tumbling into an abyss. Falling in love with the Doctor again was slipping on ice, only to catch herself at the very last second; the only harm done was a pain in her chest, a rush of adrenaline, and a primal, animalistic wariness of the same thing happening all over again.

During the years she’d fought to get back to him, she’d had a role to play, turning her identity—like her emotions—to water in order to fill two disparate roles: her private self; Rose Tyler, Assistant Director of Torchwood Research and Development, and her public self; Rose Tyler, socialite, philanthropist, and heiress to the Vitex fortune. Many of her evenings were filled with fundraisers and black tie affairs, wearing clothing that felt _wrong,_ wearing a smile that wasn’t real, and feeling completely lost. All of the banquets, soirees, and public interest pieces just left her feeling empty and anxious; she’d experienced so much that all she longed for was to _move,_ to run. She finally understood what the Doctor meant when he said it was important to have a hand to hold; she longed for his. 

On Bad Wolf Bay, the Doctor looked at Rose Tyler, peering into the eyes of the woman he’d lost so long ago; he sees the change, but knows— _knows—_ in his bones that she could be— _no,_ without a doubt _was—_ the woman he loved. The woman he’d love for the rest of his human life. Could she accept that he had become two men, and choose his one life and one heart over all of Time and space? He could no longer give her that, but he could give her all of himself; something he hadn’t been able to do before he’d lost a heart. Choosing a stationary life was a choice the Doctor never would’ve thought it was possible to make, let alone this easily. _The one adventure he could never have,_ or so he’d thought; now he could be in two places at once. He could be the steward of the universe and the man who loved Rose Tyler and gave her the life she deserved.

He’d regenerated nearly a dozen times, changing shapes and becoming a new man again and again, but beneath it all, even with the metacrisis weaving in a little human DNA, he was still a Time Lord. He had over 900 years of memories, a mind full of cultures and customs all but extinct. No biological accident could erase that. Mixing in a little new DNA didn’t solve his problems or absolve him of his past, but it cast a new light on both. He knew that it was finally time to stand up and say what he’d felt for so long. He leaned in and whispered in Rose’s ear, “I love you.”

She looked at him for a long moment before tugging him by the lapels into the most glorious kiss he’d ever experienced. Her lips were warm against his, and as they clung to each other, passion and desperation shadowing the ripple of every muscle, he was certain that he was happy with the choice he’d made and the man he’d become.

When their lips met, Rose thought as certainty set in; _He’s still…he’s still my Doctor.”_


End file.
